Stories by Juan Cole

As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu makes a bid to thwart President Barack Obama’s foreign policy toward Iran, the Iranian press is reacting to the wrench Netanyahu is trying to throw into negotiations over Iran’s civilian nuclear enrichment program. But for some odd reason, American mass media are almost never interested in what critics of the United States are saying.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clearly believes he can openly side with the Republican Congress against President Barack Obama without facing any consequences. However, Meir Dagan, the former head of Israeli intelligence, sees danger.

The conspiracy hatched by Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to undermine President Obama’s negotiations with Iran over its civilian nuclear weapons program has a false premise that dooms it.

Juan R.I. Cole is the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. He has written extensively on modern Islamic movements in Egypt, the Persian Gulf and South Asia and has given numerous media interviews on the war on terrorism and the Iraq War. He lived in various parts of the Muslim world for nearly 10 years and continues to travel widely there. He speaks Arabic, Farsi and Urdu.

His most recent book is “Engaging the Muslim World” (2009), and his “Napoleon’s Egypt: Invading the Middle East” was published in 2007.

Cole was the recipient of the Hudson Research Professorship in 2003, the National Endowment for the Humanities grant in 1991, and the Fulbright-Hays Islamic Civilization Postdoctoral Award in 1985-86. In November 2004, he was elected president of the Middle East Studies Association of North America and in 2006 was the recipient of Hunter College’s James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism.

Cole holds a B.A. in history and literature of religions from Northwestern University and a master’s degree in Arabic studies/history from American University in Cairo. In 1984 he completed his Ph.D. in Islamic studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Since 2002, he has published the blog Informed Comment, at http://www.juancole.com.